


what hurts the most

by MusicalLuna



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bad Science, Branding, Burns, Captivity, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, Guilt, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Medical Torture, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Sensory Exchange, Torture, minor Bruce - Freeform, minor Thor - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 07:40:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11801511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalLuna/pseuds/MusicalLuna
Summary: Nightshade is the definition of a mad scientist and she's got something special cooked up for Steve and Tony.





	1. The Final Draft

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nightwalker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwalker/gifts).



> this is my fic for the stony trumps hate auction!
> 
> thank you to everyone who gave me feedback, but especially arukou who held my hand through the creation of this fic! i'm super grateful <3

Steve wakes to the pinch of a needle going into his deltoid.

He jerks away instinctively, but he's been tied to the chair he's seated in in about sixteen places and he doesn't get very far. “What are you giving me?”

Nightshade glances at him as she withdraws the needle and deposits it in a biohazard bin on the wall. She smiles as she removes her gloves and drops them into a trashcan under the bin. “That's for me to know and you to find out. I see you're getting comfortable.”

“This is not what I'd call comfortable, no,” Steve replies dryly. He's embarrassed he'd fallen asleep, but he's been in this room nearly twenty-four hours and while Nightshade has stopped in a few times to poke and prod—at one point he’d been forced to let her swab his mouth—it's been otherwise quiet. “Where is Tony?” he asks, the way he has every time she visits.

She ignores him and the simmering anger in Steve's chest boils over abruptly. “Tell me what you did with him! If you hurt him—”

“You'll do nothing,” Nightshade says, turning back at the door. “Captain America is impotent.” She smirks. “I like you this way.”

Steve yells his fury, straining at the bindings and Nightshade watches him, cool and unimpressed. He can't break them between the material and his lack of leverage and they both know it.

The door closes behind her with a resounding clang.

Steve slumps back in the chair, caught between fury and despair. He knows Tony was captured, too—the only reason Nightshade had been able to subdue Steve in the first place was because one of her lackeys had gotten their hands on Tony.

Steve hasn't seen him since, and the uncertainty is wearing on him. Whatever Nightshade has in mind for them isn't going to be good and last time they'd encountered her, Tony had taken the brunt of it. She'd gotten Steve with a faceful of pheromones she'd engineered and he'd nearly taken off Tony's head with the shield. Steve will never forget the way Tony had plead with him as long as he lives. The memory makes his stomach turn.

If this is going to be anything like that, Steve will never forgive himself for not keeping a better eye out during their date. He hates her for that too—their date the other night had been a welcome reprieve from the insanity of their lives and a rarely afforded chance for them to spend time together, at least until they’d been ambushed. Someone had gone to extensive trouble to guide them into a bottleneck and Steve hadn't even realized because he'd been so wrapped up in Tony's attention.

Rehashing what he should have done then isn’t going to help now though.

Steve gives the room a hard look for the dozenth time, searching for anything that might give him a chance to break free. There isn’t much though. It’s a simple metal box with the biohazard bin and a small plastic trashcan next to the door, the solitary metal chair in the center, which is bolted to the floor, and a two-tier metal cart pushed into one of the back corners. A camera has been installed directly above the doorway and he’s not sure if it’s for surveillance or for showing off, but he doesn’t like it either way.

Steve sighs and tries pulling at the restraints again, but all he manages to do is make his arms ache.

If Tony were here, he’d have a brilliant idea.

They’ve been dating for just over six months and it’s a little like living in a dream. The last time Steve had been so happy was during the war with Peggy and the Commandos.

He gets wrapped up in thinking about Tony and he doesn’t realize right away that his chest has started to ache. It progresses until it feels like there’s something cold and hard sitting in the center of his sternum, pressing against his lungs. Especially when he breathes, he can feel it, and it’s making each breath harder than it should be.

“What the hell did she give me?” he mutters and breathes in as deep as he can, wincing at the pinch in his chest.

The door opens and Nightshade saunters back in carrying a clipboard. “How are you feeling, Captain? You should be feeling some effect by now, I made sure to account for your metabolism.”

“What did you give me?” Steve demands.

She smiles. “Now I can’t tell you that, it might contaminate the results. Tell me what you’re feeling.”

“My chest aches,” Steve says grudgingly—early on Nightshade had made it amply clear that Tony would be the one to suffer if he didn’t cooperate. “I feel like I can’t breathe properly—”

She makes notes on the clipboard, her expression impassive.

“Where. Is. Tony?”

Nightshade backhands him.

The suddenness of it is a shock, but not nearly as much of a shock as the complete lack of pain. His head snaps to the side in response to the blow, but he doesn’t feel a thing—not the intense sting he braces for, not the sharp protest of his neck turning so sharply—nothing.

She’s watching him when he brings his head back around. “Was it a painkiller?” he asks. “What you gave me? Was it a painkiller?”

“Why?” Her gaze is shrewd, picking him apart piece by piece.

“Because I didn’t feel that at all!”

The barest hint of pleasure crosses her face. She turns on her heel and leaves without another word.

Steve stares after her. What the hell is she up to?

He doesn’t have long to stew.

A yell bursts from his mouth as his arm is seized with the vicious buzzing numbness of electric shock. The sensation bleeds from his shoulder into his chest, and then, as quickly as it came on, the sensation is gone, leaving him panting and trembling.

His heart races, pounding hard against—against nothing, but it feels like there’s something embedded in his chest—

Steve feels shaky with the shock of the pain. It has to be related to the injection Nightshade gave him, but how?

The door opens again and Nightshade breaks into a smile when she sees the way he’s huddled in the chair. “These results are promising.”

“What the hell did you give me?” Steve knows it’s not likely he’ll get an answer, but he has to try. If this is what she’s doing to him, what is she doing to Tony?

“Your turn,” Nightshade says, and Steve hardly has time to wonder what she means before she darts in and presses a compact taser to his arm. His body locks up, the muscles tensing all at once and Steve knows he should feel it, he should feel something—that terrible numbness he felt earlier, but he doesn’t.

Even more horrifying is the sharp, wavering cry he hears from outside the still open door.

_Tony_.

He fights the grip of the taser, shouting, “TONY!”

Nightshade withdraws the taser and Steve jerks forward, straining at his bonds.

“TONY!”

“Steve!” Tony yells back and he sounds a little out of breath, a little strained, but it’s him, Steve would recognize his voice in any condition and the relief of hearing it is staggering.

“What did you do to him, _what did you do to him?_ ” Steve demands, baring his teeth at Nightshade. She looks unperturbed.

“The same as I’ve done to you.”

She’s infuriating and Steve knows he’ll never get the answers he wants out of her, so he turns his attention back to Tony.

“Tony? Are you hurt?”

“Eh,” Tony calls back, still sounding like he’s getting his breath back, “Nothing lasting. It’s good to hear your voice. I thought…” He doesn’t finish, but Steve can imagine it’s been as hard for him as it has for Steve.

He should have never taken his eyes off Nightshade.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her move, and in the other room Tony screams.

Steve jerks at the sound, horror washing through him in a cold wave, but he’s stopped by more than his bindings because when he looks down, he sees something his brain can’t comprehend.

A metal brand is pressed to his right pectoral, smoking as his t-shirt burns away and the smell of charred flesh starts to fill his nose.

In the other room, Tony wails and Steve finally realizes what Nightshade has done to them. He’s feeling what Tony feels and Tony is feeling what he feels.

“Stop,” he chokes, “stop, stop, don’t!”

“No.”

Despite her refusal, she pulls the brand away. Steve quickly realizes it’s not to grant them a reprieve as she waits for the electric iron to heat back up.

"What do you want? Why are you... Please. I'll—"

"Don't you dare, Steve!"

Steve ignores Tony, even knowing he’ll be furious if— _when_ they get out of this. “I’ll do whatever you want, but don’t do this—”

“Dammit, Steve!”

“There is something else I want to try,” she says thoughtfully.

Steve is afraid to ask.

Before he can, she strides out of the room, the door swinging shut behind her. She’s going for Tony. “NO!” he yells, straining at his bindings, “Nightshade!” If she leaves a mark like this on Tony, it will be permanent. He doesn’t know if it’s better or worse if Tony doesn’t feel it, but still has to live with the mark forever. “Nightsha—” He breaks off with a howl, his whole body arching away from the burning jolt of agony that rips across his chest. It's excruciating, and he thrashes, trying to get away. Then it goes numb, fiery lines dancing along the edges of the wound he knows is now seared into Tony’s skin.

Nightshade returns.

“I’m going to destroy you,” he pants, rage hot enough to blot out the ache of the burn between his collarbones.

“You’re much less effective when you’re restrained properly,” Nightshade comments, like she’s talking about the weather. The brand in her hand is working it’s way back toward red hot. She presses a button on the wall and the wall to his right starts to rise. “Now that we’ve done the initial test without compromising the results with the possibility of psychosomatic responses, I think it will be much more fun to do it this way.”

“Tony?” Steve says, bending his neck down as far as he possibly can to get a glimpse of him as the wall draws up bit by bit.

“I can’t believe you,” Tony says, irritation thick in his voice, “offering her anything when you know she won’t do jack shit in return.”

“I can’t just sit here and listen!” Steve snaps, but a lot of the vehemence in his voice is lost because he finally can see Tony’s face and he’s so grateful he doesn’t have it in him to argue. He can see Tony’s chest, too, where his shirt’s been torn open, and the red, blistered skin forms the shape of…

Steve feels white hot fury boil through him. The Hydra symbol. She’s branded them with the Hydra symbol. “You bitch,” he snarls and she just smirks at him.

“It suits your obsession.”

“Steve!” Tony yelps, then louder, “Steve! You’re going to break your damn wrist!”

All at once, Steve realizes how hard he’s straining and horror washes over him. “I’m sorry, Tony, oh god, I’m—”

“This is boring,” Nightshade says and slinks toward him again with the brand.

“No, no no no,” Steve babbles and he’s still repeating it when she lifts his shirt and jabs the brand against his side.

Tony clamps his teeth down around a scream, but it gets away from him and Steve twists, trying desperately to get the brand away from his skin. “Don’t,” he begs, because he has to do something, even if it’s futile. It feels like Steve’s—or, well, it must be Tony’s—heart is slamming against what Steve dimly realizes must be the arc reactor.

It’s the worst thing Steve can imagine, sitting here, useless, listening as Tony is tortured. He can’t do anything and it feels like he’s going to choke, his throat tightening so he can’t breathe.

“Oh, look at that skin,” he hears Nightshade say, and it’s as if he’s hearing her voice from a long way off. “That serum is really something, hm? What if we—”

Some part of Steve’s brain recognizes that he’s dissociating. There’s nothing for him to feel, and it’s like his mind is drifting off, leaving his body alone in the chair. He can vaguely hear noises, but he can’t tell what they are anymore, even though he knew just a minute ago.

He’s shocked when Nightshade reappears somewhere different than he’d thought she was and he flinches at the sound of Tony’s hoarse cry when she puts the brand over the first mark again.

This is his fault. Tony is suffering because Steve failed to protect him.

Steve’s head goes swimmy and he loses time. He knows because when next he looks there’s a new mark just above his belly button. It brings him back a little and his stomach drops like a stone when he sees Tony’s head hanging forward limply.

Steve glances down at where Nightshade has the brand pressed to his thigh and feels shivers start rippling through his body. It doesn’t hurt, exactly, but he can feel warmth and he shifts.

Nightshade looks up at him, her eyes narrowing. “Oh, damn. Is it wearing off already?” She pulls the brand away. “Time for a new dose then, I’m not done with you.” The smirk she flashes him over her shoulder makes Steve feel sick.

He can’t. He can’t do this again. He can’t let her keep hurting Tony.

“Tony,” he hisses when the door shuts, hearing the note of pleading in his own voice. “Tony. Tony, come on,” he wheedles, desperation creeping into his voice.

But Tony doesn’t respond.

Steve looks around, hoping he’ll see something this time that he missed before. When he does, it’s not something useful. It’s the mark on his thigh, the one he can only faintly feel, the one that may have pushed Tony into unconsciousness.

“Mmnh’eve?”

Steve’s head snaps up. “Tony!”

Tony’s brow furrows and he lifts his head a little, although it looks like it’s a struggle. “‘s happenin’?”

“Whatever she gave us started to wear off. She went to go get more.”

Tony jolts at that and sits up more fully, blinking rapidly. “Shit, she’s gone?”

“Yeah, but not for long.”

“Sorry,” Tony says, and Steve’s not sure why until his right thumb abruptly flares with pain. “Okay, yeah, that’s weird. Sorry again—” The other one flares with pain and then Tony is putting his hands in his lap, awkwardly using his fingers to put his thumbs back in their sockets. Another injury Steve should have been able to prevent, Steve thinks bitterly.

Tony groans quietly as he leans over to quickly untie the ropes holding his legs to the chair.

Steve squirms in his own chair, desperately wanting to go to him and look him over head to toe. “Are you all right?”

“Still hurts,” Tony says through gritted teeth and then he’s on his feet. He wavers terrifyingly for a moment before steadying and moving quickly to untie Steve’s feet. The effects must be wearing off faster for Steve, because it doesn’t seem like Tony’s feeling his pain any less. He’s looking around the room, trying to figure out how he’s going to get Steve out of the cuffs when the door swings open again.

Steve tenses.

The relief he feels when Thor walks through the door and not Nightshade is immense. He feels lightheaded, almost sick with it.

Tony wobbles and drops onto his hip at Steve’s feet, his whole body sagging. “Thor, thank the All-Father.”

Thor smiles grimly and sets Mjolnir aside by the door, moving quickly to join them. He cups the back of Tony’s neck and Tony’s eyes flutter shut, his head dropping forward to rest on Steve’s knee. Steve twists, wanting his hands now.

“I am glad to find you,” Thor says. Then his smile widens a little. “It looks as though you were making your own way though.”

“You know patience isn’t one of my virtues,” Tony mumbles.

“Get me out of these,” Steve demands of Thor.

“Aye,” Thor says and pulls a laser cutter from his belt. “Remain still.”

Steve feels Tony grimace as the metal of the cuff heats up, but Thor is finished quickly and Steve pulls one hand free, reaching to bury his fingers in Tony’s hair. The other is free in just a few seconds and Steve gratefully curls his arm around Tony’s shoulders. “Tony…”

“Not your fault,” Tony says wearily.

Steve wants to argue, wants to tell Tony that he should have done something, spotted Nightshade before she got them, _something_ , but Tony doesn’t need to argue with him right now.

“Let me see how you are injured,” Thor says and Steve reluctantly draws back from Tony. Tony doesn’t move.

Thor is careful, his hands ginger as he moves Steve’s shirt and inspects the brand-marks left on Steve’s skin. The first one is raised and pink, beginning to heal.

“She marked you with the Hydra symbol,” Thor says, expression dark.

“Yeah,” Steve says, looking away from the burned flesh. They’ll fade soon enough, it’s the one on Tony’s skin he’s worried about. Tony catches his eye.

“Out first, then fall apart.”

Steve nods. Tony finally seems to be regaining his strength as the pain of Steve’s wounds seeps back into Steve himself. As unpleasant as it is, it’s almost grounding, to feel the pain his brain knows should go with the wounds on his body.

“Are you good?” Tony asks as he gets to his feet, wincing a little as he pulls at the skin between his collarbones where his own brand sits.

“I’m good,” Steve replies and joins him on his feet. “Thor, get us out of here.”

~ * ~

Thor leads them out to where the Quinjet is waiting. Steve can tell they’re outside the city, but not how far. He doesn’t particularly care.

He and Tony stumble onto one of the bench seats along one wall.

Steve feels exponentially worse than he did just a few minutes ago, whereas Tony seems to have gotten a fresh wind. The compound Nightshade gave them must be out of their systems now. While Steve is grateful that Tony isn’t suffering like this anymore, he hates that he had to at all.

“Bruce,” Thor calls, and Bruce’s head pops out from the cockpit, his expression anxious.

“Oh god,” he mutters, tone relieved. Then he spots the burns. His eyes flare momentarily, but then he’s pushed it aside, reaching to pull a medkit down from the overhead storage.

“Steve,” Tony says, hands fluttering over his body without landing anywhere, “you look like hell.”

“Gee, thanks,” Steve says, closing his eyes against a surge of dizziness.

“Sit down close to him,” Bruce instructs and a moment later, Steve feels Tony press up against his side. Then he feels a blanket settle across his back. A moment later, there are fingers gently moving the fabric of his jeans away from the burn on his thigh.

Steve clumsily tries to bat them away. “L’ve it. Tony first.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Tony replies, agitated. “The worst doctor in the world would know to treat the guy with eight burns before the guy with one.”

Steve frowns, eyes cracking open. Eight? Had it really been that many?

“I’ve given him a cool cloth to put over the burn, it will be fine until I can make sure we get you taken care of,” Bruce says.

“Jesus,” Tony mutters and reaches up with one hand, hooking it around Steve’s head and tugging it down to where Tony can press a kiss to his temple. “Your concern is appreciated, honeycakes, but I got off way better than you.”

Steve shakes his head. “Heard you screaming.” He hisses as Bruce cuts away his t-shirt; the air feels like tiny knives slashing the wounds. Bruce quickly follows up by draping cool, damp cloths over them and that helps considerably.

He starts to shiver as the cloths cool his skin and the adrenaline starts to fade and Tony rubs a hand along his arm, where it isn’t injured. He’s still taking care of Steve and Steve hasn’t done a goddamn thing to take care of him.

Steve’s eyes prick and before he can do anything about it, he can feel them spilling over. He clenches them shut.

“Steve?”

_Shit_.

“Steve are you in pain?”

He shakes his head, gritting his teeth. “This should have never happened. I s-should have stopped it. She tortured you and you’re still taking care of me when I should be taking care of you.”

He hears Tony ask Bruce to give them a minute and then Tony’s hands are on his face, pulling his head around so their foreheads are pressed together. “Honey, if this is your fault then it’s my fault, too. I shouldn’t have let her get the jump on me.”

“That’s not true,” Steve objects.

“Isn’t it?” Tony replies, voice gone rough. “Isn’t it my fault you’re covered in Hydra emblems?”

“They’ll heal and it’ll be like they were never there. The pain—”

“Was temporary. It’s over.”

Steve gingerly touches the cloth Tony is holding over the brand mark on his chest. “This isn’t,” he says and chokes on the words.

Tony shrugs, his eyes bright and worried, focused on Steve’s face. “Sure it is. I’ll get grafts, spend time in the Cradle, whatever I need to, and it’ll be like it was never there.”

“Shouldn’t have to,” Steve mutters.

Tony tips his head back and presses a kiss to Steve’s forehead. He lets his eyes fall shut, drinking in the comfort he doesn’t deserve. “We deal with a lot of shouldn’t have tos, but we always do.”

“I love you,” Steve breathes, and his grip on Tony’s hip is probably too tight, but Tony doesn’t seem to mind.

“Love you, too.”

“And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t—I wasn’t— Better.”

“It’s not you who should be sorry, but if it makes you feel better, I forgive you.”

Steve sucks in a breath and presses his face into the crook of Tony’s neck even though it hurts to twist his body like that. He stays there for a long time, until Tony’s skin is tacky and Steve’s breathing evens back out.

The other Avengers have started to appear and Steve sits back reluctantly, taking one of Tony’s hands so he can be sure he’s right there. Bruce comes back and bandages the burn on his thigh, then drapes another blanket across their laps before he gets to work on the rest.

Tony rests his head on Steve’s shoulder and Steve squeezes his hand. They’ll get through this, just like they always do.

Together.


	2. First Draft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I figured I might as well post this, too. :P

Steve's chest starts to ache, and that's the first sign something is very wrong.

He doesn't realize his breathing has shallowed until Tony says in a low voice, “Hey, you okay?”

Steve frowns. “I think so. It just—it feels like I can't take a deep breath. It's like there's something sitting in my chest.”

“Hm,” Tony says thoughtfully, “Weird. I can breathe fine. Normally that's how I—” His head turns sharply, eyes going over Steve's body; he takes in how Steve is sitting, hands bound to the bars that form the back of his chair, his feet to the front legs.

Tony's teeth tear at his lip and Steve winces. “Ow, hey—“

Steve's eyes go wide.

“Shit,” Tony says.

Tony's lip is beading blood, and Steve's lip throbs, swollen and painful. Steve licks it, expecting the tang of blood, but it it feels normal—unbroken. It just hurts.

“Tony, what the hell—” he demands.

“Do something else,” Tony says, “something that hurts.”

Steve stares at him incredulously for a moment, but Tony's got his “there's a problem and I'm going to solve it” face on. Better to just do as he asks and then get an answer. Steve glances down at his own body, at the t-shirt and jeans he'd been wearing when they were snatched off the street. Someone had gone to extensive trouble to guide them into a bottleneck and Steve hadn't even realized because he'd been so wrapped up in Tony's attention.

There's not much he can do, strapped to the chair the way he is. He decides on jerking his arm upward, like he's trying to pull out of the cuffs. He sees the metal bite into his wrist, sees the skin split and blood start to stream out. But he doesn't feel a thing.

Four feet away, Tony yelps and spits, “Fucking _shit_ , Jesus, Steve!”

Horror washes through Steve. “Sorry, I'm sorry— Tony why didn't you _say?”_

“I didn't think you'd try and _cut off your damn hand.”_ Hissing through his teeth, eyes screwed shut, Tony takes a deep breath. “God, that stings.” Without opening his eyes, he adds, “Stop looking at me like that, you didn't know and it's already fading.”

“I hurt you.”

“Yeah, and I hurt you,” Tony replies, turning his head to look at Steve. “Some kind of sensory exchange. I'm not looking forward to whatever they thought they needed that effect for.”

“Why does my chest ache?” Steve sits forward—as much as he can—and leans toward Tony, frowning. “Did they do something to the arc reactor? Is it okay?”

“It's fine,” Tony says patiently. “It always feels like that.”

“You— It—” Steve stares at him in mute horror and hates a little how gentle the look he gets back from Tony is.

“You knew that,” Tony reminds him. There's no bite to the words.

“I know, I guess I just never— God, Tony.”

Tony's eyes move away and he shrugs. “Seems bad to you because it's new, but I barely notice it most days.”

Steve keeps to himself how awful that is. “How are we going to get out of here?”

“Still working on that.”

He's tied to his chair the same way Steve is, also in jeans and one of his worn black band t-shirts. The bracelets he'd been wearing earlier are gone, something that had deeply frustrated Tony when he'd noticed. “Gotta come up with something more subtle,” he'd grumbled and then tugged on the restraints holding his arms, “and that doesn't require free movement, dammit!”

Tony doesn't need much range of motion to use the chips under his skin, but he needs more than he has now, and since Steve can't move himself, he's not sure how they're going to manage that. He glances down at his bloodied wrist, wondering if he might be able to tuck his thumb in and—

“Can you do that?” Tony asks, reading his mind as usual.

Steve considers it, shifting his hand around and testing the hold of the cuff. Tony hisses. “Cuffs are too tight,” he finally concludes. “I don't think my hand's'd fit even if I dislocated my thumb.”

Tony wriggles his hands. “Mine are a little slimmer, maybe I can—”

The door swings open and they both straighten, chins tilting up defiantly.

A woman wearing more black leather than can really be comfortable with twin puffs of dark hair on either side of her head saunters in, smiling.

“Nightshade,” Steve sighs and Tony says, “Well, that explains more than it doesn't.”

“Are you going to try and make us fight again?” Steve asks, careful not to belie his nerves. “As I recall, that didn't work out so well for you.”

“No, I've got something new to test on you boys,” she says, eyes flashing with glee.

Nightshade is one of their foes who really shakes Steve. She's stunningly brilliant and wholly incapable of compassion. All that matters to her is the next sadistic experiment—and her cat.

“I haven't signed any consent forms,” Tony interjects and his voice is light, but Steve can see the wary tension in his body. Whatever Nightshade has in mind for them isn't going to be good and last time they'd encountered her, Tony had taken the brunt of it. She'd gotten Steve with a faceful of pheromones she'd designed and he'd nearly taken off Tony's head with the shield. Steve will never forget the way Tony had plead with him as long as he lives. The memory makes his stomach turn.

He's afraid this will be all too similar.

“Consent is for people who don't want to get anything done,” Nightshade says, her boots clicking as she moves in. “Let's see if my new creation has worked as intended, shall we?”

“I vote no,” Tony replies.

“Seconded.”

Nightshade ignores them both and her hand whips out like a cobra striking, pressing a small object to Tony's forearm.

Tony convulses in his chair, limbs going rigid, and before Steve's worry can fully form, a yell bursts from his mouth as his arm is seized with the vicious buzzing numbness of electric shock. The sensation bleeds from his shoulder into his chest, and then, as quickly as it came on, the sensation is gone, leaving him panting and trembling.

He twists in his restraints, trying to get a look at Tony around Nightshade. “Tony? Tony, are you—”

“I'm fine,” Tony says; he sounds a little dazed. It doesn't help Steve choke down his fear. An electric shock could short the arc reactor or stop Tony's heart or— “I didn't feel anything. Weird as—” His brain must catch up because he blurts, “Shit, are you okay?”

“Fine, it was a shock, but I've had w—”

Steve's mouth snaps shut mid-word as Nightshade presses the small object to the back of his arm and his body locks up.

There's no sensation except the wave of horror that rolls through him at the sound of Tony's sharp cry.

It feels like he's frozen for an eternity, though it can't be more than a minute, if that. When Nightshade withdraws the object, he slumps back into his chair, but still, there's no sensation. It's very unsettling.

Meanwhile, Tony is breathing in shuddering gasps to his right. “ _Ow,_ ” he says irritably.

“These are excellent first results,” Nightshade says and starts toward the door. “I'll be back in a moment.”

“Please don't hurry,” Tony calls after her retreating back.

“Are you all right?” Steve demands, leaning over the best he can to get a look at him.

“What? Oh, sure, I'm fine,” Tony says and then looks over and his whole face softens. “Really, Steve, I'm fine. That was more annoying than anything. DUM-E's shocked me worse than that. You wouldn't _believe_ how many times the suit's shocked me. That was nothing.”

“But the reactor—”

“Oh, it's made to handle that.” Tony smiles reassuringly at him and Steve feels stupid and awful that Tony's been hurt and is reassuring _him_. “It would take something like a lightning strike to disrupt my heart while I've got the reactor. I'd die from the burns before I'd die from arrythmia.”

Steve swallows thickly, his throat catching and his stomach curdling. “That's not actually reassuring.”

“Sorry. I'm okay though, let's stick with that, huh?”

“Sure,” Steve croaks. It won't do any good to focus on what may or may not kill his partner, so Steve tries to focus his thoughts on the problem at hand. “We have to get out of here. She's only going to escalate this.”

“Agreed. I think I—”

The door opens again, and Steve's heart jumps with it.

Nightshade grins at them. “Now it's time for some real fun, boys.”

“I think you may need to go back to English class,” Tony replies. His words seem to dry up when Nightshade sticks the end of a two and a half foot long metal bar into a hole in the ground. The end that's facing upward is topped with a flat shape Steve can't quite make out.

His skin goes icy when Nightshade pulls out a portable blowtorch and switches it on.

The bar is a _brand_.

He looks over at Tony and finds him looking back, expression worried. “I don't like where this is going,” he mutters.

They turn back to watch silently as Nightshade applies the blue and orange flame of the torch to the end of the brand and bit by bit it starts to glow an ominous red.

Steve can hear quiet rustling noises from Tony's direction and he doesn't know what Tony's up to, but he hopes it's fast and effective because he's all out of plans.

Before long, the brand is bright enough it's hard to look at.

Nightshade switches the blowtorch off and Steve shifts, clenching his fists. His chest feels tight and too small for his lungs. He doesn't know if she means to use it on him or Tony, but the thought of either makes his stomach lurch—if she uses it on Tony, he'll have that mark forever, but if she uses it on Steve, Tony will _feel_ it and the thought fills him with a horrible revulsion.

Dammit, _think, Steve!_

She doesn't give him much time to contemplate the options—without so much as a pause, she picks up the brand and strides over to Tony, pulling back the collar of his shirt and pressing the brand to his chest, just above the arc reactor.

A howl tears out of Steve's throat his whole body arching away from the burning jolt of agony that rips across his chest. It's excruciating, and he thrashes, trying to _get away._ Then the skin goes numb, aching in fiery lines further out.

It's not like with the electric shock where the worst of it was during and in the moment or so after. Steve doesn't even realize for a moment that Nightshade has retreated to heat the brand again because he's so focused on the bright, relentless spot of pain just below his collarbones.

When she presses the brand to the outside of his arm, Steve notices that.

Like before, it doesn’t hurt, not anywhere except the lingering burn below his collarbones from the brand she put on Tony.

Tony clamps his teeth down around a scream, but it gets away from him and Steve twists, trying desperately to get the brand away from his skin. “Don’t,” he begs, because it’s futile, but he has to do something. It feels like Steve’s—or, well, it must be Tony’s—heart is slamming against something hard enough to ache.

“You’re much less effective when you’re restrained,” Nightshade comments, like she’s talking about the weather, and withdraws the brand, moving to reheat it.

“Fffuck,” Tony slurs. “That did not feel good.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve says desperately, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Tony--” He tries again to break the restraints, only to stop, horrified, when Tony hisses. His wrist, he’d forgotten. “I’m sorry,” he chokes.

“Not your fault.”

Nightshade returns.

“No, no no no,” Steve babbles and he’s still repeating it when she lifts his shirt and jabs the brand against his side.

Tony shrieks.

It’s the worst thing Steve can imagine, sitting here, useless, listening as Tony is tortured. He can’t do anything and it feels like he’s going to choke, his throat filled so he can’t breathe.

“Oh, look at that skin,” he hears Nightshade say, and it’s as if he’s hearing her voice from a long way off. “That serum is really something, hm? What if we--”

Some part of Steve’s brain recognizes that he’s dissociating.

He’s shocked when Nightshade reappears somewhere different than he’d thought she was and he flinches at the sound of Tony’s hoarse cry when she puts the brand over the first burn/brandspot again.

His head goes swimmy for awhile and Steve loses time. He knows because when next he looks there’s a new mark on his stomach when he feels a faint sear of pain across his thigh. It brings him back a little and his stomach drops like a stone when he sees Tony’s head hanging limply over his lap.

He glances down at where Nightshade has the brand pressed to his thigh and feels shivers start rippling through his body. It doesn’t hurt, exactly, but he can feel warmth and he shifts. Nightshade looks up at him, her eyes narrowing. “Oh, damn. Is it wearing off already?” She pulls the brand away and drops it into the hole in the floor. “Time for a new dose then, I’m not done with you.” The smirk she flashes him over her shoulder makes Steve feel sick.

He can’t. He can’t do this again.

“Tony,” he hisses when the door shuts, hearing the note of pleading in his own voice. “Tony. Tony, come on,” he wheedles, desperation creeping into his voice.

But Tony doesn’t respond.

Steve looks around, hoping he’ll see something this time that he missed before. When he does, it’s not something useful. It’s the mark on his thigh, his skin burned away in a concave image that he realizes is the symbol Hydra uses. He stares at it for a long moment.

“Mmnh’eve?”

Steve’s head snaps up. “Tony!”

Tony’s brow furrows and he lifts his head a little, although it looks like it’s a struggle. “‘s happenin’?”

“Whatever she gave us started to wear off. She went to go get more.”

Tony jolts at that and sits up more fully, blinking rapidly. “Shit, she’s gone?”

“Yeah, but not for long.”

“Sorry,” Tony says, and Steve’s not sure why until his right thumb abruptly flares with pain. “Okay, yeah, that’s weird. Sorry again--” The other one flares with pain and then Tony is putting his hands in his lap, awkwardly using his fingers to put his thumbs back in their sockets. He groans quietly as he leans over to quickly untie the ropes holding his legs to the chair.

Steve squirms in his own chair, desperately wanting to go to Tony and look him over head to toe. “Are you all right?”

“Still hurts,” Tony says through gritted teeth and then he’s on his feet. He wavers terrifyingly for a moment before steadying and moving quickly to untie Steve’s feet. He’s looking around the room, trying to figure out how he’s going to get Steve out of the cuffs when the door swings open again.

Steve tenses.

The relief he feels when Thor walks through the door and not Nightshade is immense. He feels lightheaded, almost sick with it.


End file.
